Bf206

Latest posts by Bf206

I'm never quite sure with garlic either. Problem is I always get impatient as I generally want to plant something else in its place! I reckon about a third of the leaves on each plant are yellowed now and there's distinct leaning going on. I scratched around to look at a few bulbs yesterday and they look ok but I'm hoping a few more weeks may lead to bigger bulbs?

Looks like powdery mildew. I've never found it a huge problem but really you should try and water round the base, not the leaves. Watering in the morning I've found is better too, so they don't have wet leaves going into the evening.

I've never found powdery mildew causes huge problems though. What I've tended to do if some of the bigger, older leaves become papery is simply cut them off. They're such vigorous plants it makes little difference.

For the first time this year, I'm growing the climbing Black Forest variety. Doing fine but I'm struggling to persuade the plants (despite a fence, canes and ties) that they want to go up right than out! The stems seem to be buckling / splitting under the weight, and that's before there's much fruit!

I try and get a friend to do some watering but, if I'm going for a week, I give them a good soaking when I go, ask someone to come mid-week, and then water them on my return. If they're in big pots and the mix is all wet, it takes a while for them to dry out completely.

My brother went away for a few weeks last summer and didn't have anyone to water his plants but he put them somewhere they wouldn't get full sun all day, made sure they had a good soaking before going, and they were fine.

Cheers, Simon. Makes sense! Last year, I still had them indoors at this point as spring was so awful and they looked very sorry for themselves by comparison - but once they were in final pots/positions, as you say they picked up v well.

Ok, I'm not too worried (until I'm told otherwise) but I've noticed a few of my plants have got a slight yellow mottling of the leaves - e.g. the big leaf in the centre of this photo.

In practice, it's only on a few plants - and since I still need to cull about half of them, this might just help me decide which to get rid of as it's only affecting a few. I'd got a bit lazy and hadn't propped open my mini greenhouse for the last couple of days, given it was cooler / wetter. I wondered if they might have got overheated a bit, although they hadn't dried out and didn't look droopy.

Either way, the greenhouse is now rather full-to-bursting and I'm a bit worried the plants are getting a little crowded so I reckon, with warm weather on its way, now's probably the time to transfer them into their final pots and positions and that may help...

Tell a lie - they're 20 litres!! I'd previously tried 15 litre ones but found that they weren't quite big enough for a single tom plant. They've currently now got leeks in them until I've got some room in a raised bed...

I started with three 12 cell module trays, one seed per cell, I reckon about 30 germinated well. I think I lost a couple when potting up and have given a few away so am prob 'down to' 25 - but I've only got 12 big pots and frankly that should be plenty!

Dark green's a good tip, italophile. Simon, I'll do one per pot.

I may actually put some outside with an honesty box if I can't see friends who'll take them!

Here's a tomato update from me for those who do / don't have a vague interest...

They seem to have adapted well enough to life in the coldframe (2 weeks now; seeds sown indoors mid-April). I only plan to repot them one more time into their final 25 litre pots although not quite yet.

I'll have to whittle this small forest down to about 12 plants though and I was thinking I should probably do that sooner rather than later before the coldframe gets too crowded . So, any hints / tips on how to spot the strongest plants? Best to look say for a thicker stem but not necessarily the tallest? The tallest ones are largely the seedlings that bolted a bit after germination but I've found in the past that even the spindliest plants buried deeply do just fine.